Are you an unpacker?  Or someone who lives out of a suitcase?

I definitely consider myself as someone who falls into the second category.  I rarely stay anywhere long enough to seriously consider unpacking.  Moreover, I always pack my suitcase with such meticulous precision, that I can find anything within it as easily as if it were all hung out in a wardrobe.  Additionally, I have a fear of losing things.  The more items, which gain the freedom of my suitcase’s confines, the more likelihood that something will go missing.  Or so I reason.

The only time I may make an exception to this rule will occur roughly halfway through any trip, and when the top of my case is increasingly full of dirty clothes and I am forced to mine ever deeper for anything clean to wear.  Then, and only then, I may have a one-off total repack: dirty to the bottom; clean to the top.  A pragmatic rule, strictly adhered to.

Except…

On my most recent travels to Ireland, something happened that made me question my strategy.

I was staying in Letterkenny, County Donegal.  Staying at Dillons Hotel.  Only stopping over for two nights.  Surely not enough time to justify unpacking my suitcase?

Except…

When I was checking-in, the receptionist, a kindly soul, offered me a free upgrade to my room: “A bigger bed, and a walk-in shower,” she said.

What she didn’t say was that the upgraded room had an entire walk-in wardrobe attached, too.  Wardrobe?  It was an entirely separate room.  I’ve stayed in smaller bedrooms than this wardrobe––every time I stay in Paris, in fact.  It went against all my unpacking principles, but it seemed rather churlish not to make use of all this unexpected extra space.

What should I do?

In the end, habit won out.  I still didn’t unpack my suitcase; used not an inch of the extra storage in my upgraded room.  In fact, the wardrobe just became some fresh scary space, which I had to check every night, to make sure there were no intruders lurking there before I went to sleep.

© E. C. Glendenny

E. C. Glendenny prefers the simple life.